Greetings and salutations wrestling fans! More Yoshihiro Tajiri for your entertainment!
Tajiri vs Minoru Tanaka (BattlARTS 01/20/98) We get 12 of 15 minutes. Damn, this is a cool ass match! Blue gear Tajiri might be my favorite era of his. He & Minoru are doing great submissions, pin attempts, kicks & suplexes. They are evenly matched and just doing everything! A great match and a peek into what Tajiri could have been like if he stayed in Japan.
Tajiri vs Antifaz del Norte (ECW Dec. 1998) - Their debut match. It's mainly highlights from Hardcore TV. Tajiri was already doing his Tarantula move!? I didn't think that started until right before he started wearing the long pants & spitting the mist.
Tajiri vs El Mosco, Taz (ECW 06/24/99) - Hartford, CT fan cam. It's a fun segment with El Moscow where he's given time to shine but is quickly dispatched by Tajiri, who's moving up in the ranks. His win impresses Taz who comes out from the back & gives the Japanese buzz saw a title match. They start with some crowd wandering to hype up the audience. Once settled in the ring, we get a taste of what they really can do - Big kicks & quick moves from Tajiri & great suplexes from Taz. This was good!
Tajiri vs Little Guido (ECW 01/22/00) - Was 2000 the height of wrestling for this boom period? It certainly seemed like it because ECW was down in New Orleans. I'm guessing TNN wanted them down south in Bill Watts' old territory. The crowd definitely were new fans and far less discerning than the Northeast/Great Lakes fans that was the promotion's base. As a result, we get a good little match which was the Cliff Notes version of what these two can do. The crowd was geeking out that ECW was even there.
Tajiri vs Little Guido vs Super Crazy (ECW 04/08/00) - Big Sal was a great 4th man in this match. Dude doesn't get enough credit in spicing up Guido's matches. I watched this one twice because I liked it but did not love it the first viewing. I think what hurt it was what I mentioned above about the popularity of wrestling at the time. These were WWF/WCW fans who wanted to see car crashes in the form of table spots & blood. And I felt like these 3 great wrestlers were having to work them into their matches, to the detriment of the flow of the match. For instance, the start of the match was wonderful and definitely "extreme." Once they had to get color and set up furniture, it didn't seem as organic and exciting as what they're capable of. Additionally, there's shenanigans at the end that didn't make sense with the story. It felt WCW-ish and I remember think the company was becoming watered down at the time. All of that said, this was still pretty good overall and was enjoyable enough to watch twice. Could've been great though...
Great Muta/TAJIRI vs Gold Dustin/Hakushi (AJPW 02/17/07) - Hahaha! Yeah this match is great fun! This kinda reminds me of when they did NWO in WWE. Like, let's just not give a crap and just have some schlocky fun. Muto has it right by just doing one match instead of a whole program. If this was a PPV, it's getting the old fans to tune in. They do comedy, tease some moves, actually get some wrestling in there & generally provide entertainment. It's memorable and certainly interesting.
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